reMIND Chapter Select

You guys have been really busy spreading the word about reMIND. So busy in fact that we have blown through 2 more stretch goals unlocking the Lizard Man Postcard and the Cyrene Postcard. The Sonja Postcard is only about $500 away so I expect it to be hit today for sure. Everyone who backed this project to get a book will be getting all these extras thrown in. (Or should I say, lovingly placed into their package.)

Here’s an updated progress chart. We are currently at $61,355!

Yesterday I announced the higher tier Collector Packs and all 5 of the limited $600 option got swiped up by the end of the day. So I decided to reduce the amount of $1000 pledges so I could add those 1st printings of Volume 1 to make more $600 options available. So there should be 2 more slots left for the $600 reward if anyone is interested.

So here’s the deal, I have been holding onto boxes of Volume 1 to sell at my final convention this year because I bought the table long before I started running out of books. So to protect myself, I set aside about 60 copies of Volume 1 for that show. But conventions are hard work and I can only get so much exposure at a small show. So now that all these first printings of Volume 1 are being plucked up as soon as I put them online, I’m starting to wonder if I should cancel my last convention this year and instead just put all those books into this Kickstarter. The longer I manage this campaign, the more I like that idea. Plus, I’m kinda burned out on Cons this year because it’s hard to be excited exhibiting when I don’t quite have my new book finished.

Anyway, I’ll let you know what I decided within the next week and if I can get a refund on my table.

Original Art Stuff

Many of you have had some questions about what my original art for reMIND looks like and the sizes. The best answer I can give you is that it is all completely random sizes because I never created any of this for the purpose of selling it. For the most part, they are all drawn in pencil but very clean pencil. They are all panels from the books, not just sketches. No color. Here are some photos of me holding up several pieces of the small art.

Original Art 1

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So far none of the Original art 2 has been selected but I honestly think it is some of my favorite stuff because I selected it based on the detail level of the art as well as the size or panel count. Here are some good examples of Original Art 2:

I would give you some pictures of the full page art but I need to go to work. :(

Thanks again for all your support and the many different ways you are showing it. Because if the success of this campaign, I am starting to see that I really might be able to take the next step into a full-time career of self-publishing my own graphic novels. :)

It’s been a very productive week and you continually impress me with your support for reMIND. Here is my updated chart for your viewing pleasure. We are at $57,889 while I write this. AMAZING!

Over the weekend you might have noticed that we blew away another stretch goal passing $56k. This unlocks the Lizard Man Postcard that will be added to everyone’s reward now. Yay! I haven’t even finished the Victuals Postcard yet but I’ll be working on these throughout the week. In fact I should probably just work on them all because it looks like all the postcard rewards might be hit this week. :) Here’s where I’m at with the Victuals postcard. The colors are all a bit off and I want to work on the lighting a little more too:

Now onto newer and BIGGER things. Several people have asked me to offer some bigger rewards and it took me a LONG time to figure out what I felt comfortable even offering for so much money. Then I think I finally figured it out. So here are all my high end rewards. If anyone chooses one of these I will be truly honored with your generosity and I will do my best to make it all worth your support. So here they are, the COLLECTOR PACKS!

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In addition to new rewards I have added a new stretch goal! When we hit $65,000 I will give everyone a FREE digital PDF of all the sketched versions of reMIND Volume 1. Here is an example of one of the spreads:

It’s pretty exciting to be able to announce a new stretch goal has been hit this morning because we hit one yesterday too. It’s apparent that you are all spreading the news about reMIND and I greatly appreciate it. In fact I keep bumping into people who tell me they posted a link on their Facebook page as well as emailed their friends about it. I can’t express just how much that means to me. So if we know each other (in person or online) and I haven’t mentioned it in passing, just know that I am super humbled and grateful for your help in this. There is just no way I could do this without you and no way I can keep up with what everyone is doing in the background but I know you are spreading the love. So again, Thank you! :)

So here is a thumbnail I drew this morning of what the Victuals Postcard will look like. If we are lucky, I’ll be able to finish it up this weekend:

While I was working on this sketch I had a few new ideas for stretch goals. Oh man! I really think your gonna love what I have in mind. It has something to do with sketches. :) Lots and lots of sketches. But we will just have to wait and see what happens.

I’m also trying to dream up some even higher level pledge options for all you ballers out there. I see all these campaigns offering $1000, $5000 and $10,000 rewards and I honestly can’t even wrap my brain around that much money from one person but I see that it could happen so I don’t want to exclude it. Right now my thoughts are to offer a large painting that’s layered like a shadow box, maybe cooking you breakfast or mentorship or offering companies a chance to be a sponsor of reMIND. I don’t know really. If anyone has pledged this kind of money before then I’d love to hear your thoughts on what would make it worth it.

ANYWAY, here again is the chart of our progress:

As you can see, my worry about dropping below 50k because of the lowered shipping announcement didn’t happen at all. In fact even though many did lower their shipping pledge, we still shot up faster than the previous day. All I have to say are two words. Rock. Stars!

I probably won’t be posting an update over the weekend unless something AMAZING happens. Which it might. But Monday I plan to launch some new pledge tiers as well as new announcements! Thanks again for all your help.

Yesterday we hit $50,000 on Kickstarter! You guys are AMAZING! This means a few things. First, everyone will now get a free bookmark included with their book! It will probably look something like this:

But that’s not all, we have now unlocked the discounted shipping. Well, it’s still going to cost me the same amount to ship the books but I will not charge as much for international shipping anymore. Please check out the new shipping chart here and at the bottom of the home page for more details. Many of you have told me that you don’t plan to change your shipping and I REALLY appreciate that! Serious. Thank you again.

Hopefully enough of you don’t lower your shipping to make the campaign drop down below 50k for very long because that would just be confusing. Ha!

(Also, just a note to remind you that it is your responsibility to include the appropriate international shipping to your pledge because this will not automatically happen on Kickstarter. If you don’t include it before the campaign closes then I will have to contact you to request it through paypal. So… please double check before the campaign closes. Thanks!)

We are well on our way to the 4 mini goals now so please keep sharing this on Facebook, Twitter and Goggle+! Also if anyone decides to go out of their way to promote this campaign then I will make it worth your time. Just let me know what you have done and I’ll shower you with additional goodies! :)

And you can’t have new goals hit without having…

New Pledge Options!

It’s a real struggle trying to figure out what to include in a new pledge tier because I know that everyone can’t possibly get exactly what they want unless I have a million options. If there is some specific combination that you would like then just message me and we can work it out.

The big deal today is a new t-shirt. I have wanted to print this for a long time and there is no better time than now I guess. Here are the reward options. If you have a limited reward and want to add a t-shirt then just increase your pledge by $18 ($23 for XXL and up) Then you’ll need to tell me what the extra money is for when I send you a survey after the campaign closes.

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On another note, since there was so much demand for the $120 rewards I decided to add a few more 1st printings. I was planning on keeping several boxes of this first printing for a rainy day but the demand is there so… I’ll offer a few more.

And in case you are frustrated that you picked a early reward and wish you had waited, don’t worry, all you need to do is manage your campaign. You can switch rewards at any time while the campaign is active. Thanks again please take a second to share this with your friends!

What a crazy weekend! This Kickstarter has really turned into a monster and I’m just trying to hold on and keep from loosing my mind. Thanks again for all your help in spreading reMIND around the internet and telling your friends about it. That reminds me, I still need to email my family and tell them what’s happening. :)

On top of that, I have had 3 interviews about the project with more being scheduled. Kickstarter was super kind and put reMIND as their featured project for Sunday. Thanks Kickstarter, you never seem to stop blowing my mind!

Anyway, there are tons of new things to announce today so I’ll get started.

Reduced International Shipping!

I have been getting lots of comments about the expensive shipping cost that I’m charging to ship 2 or more books anywhere outside of the United States. I came up with $45 for 2 or more books because it cost me about $47 on my first Kickstarter and I never insisted that people pay for shipping. I ended up loosing LOTS of money on international shipping. So this time I decided that I had to set a standard shipping charge for international orders.

Now even though I spent the last year sending books all around the world, I decided to go in and talk to a few companies this weekend to see if I could get a better deal and to try to help explain why I am charging what I’m charging. First I went to the US Post Office to see all my options. Here are the prices they listed me for my box of 2 books with extra packing material and almost an inch on each side of the books.

US Postal Service:

Canada and Mexico:

Medium Flat Rate Box – $32.95

Priority Mail – $33.45

Express Mail – $48.70

All other International Destinations:

Priority Mail – 50.40 (no tracking)

Express Mail – 59.30 (with tracking)

There were other options but they were all more expensive. So I went to FedEx to see if I could find a better deal and this is what they said:

FedEx International Shipping:

Canada and Puerto Rico:

Ground – Around $25 – $30 (depending on size and weight of each box)

Most other International Destinations: $151 (gulp)

So it looks like Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico are going to get the cheapest shipping charge. Everywhere else will be $50 or more. So, with all that said, I hope it is clear that I’m not trying to overcharge anyone for anything. In fact, with every order, I have always estimated a loss of $5 for shipping and handling anyway because the boxes and packing material cost money as well as shipping even in the US.

But even so, I have listened to all your frustration and the last thing I want to do is make it hard for anyone overseas to get a copy of reMIND. Here’s what I am going to do. If we reach $50,000 I will lower the international shipping from $45 to $35 for two or more books. Basically, I’ll pay for $15 if you can pay the rest. Does that sound okay?

I’ll update the shipping chart to reflect the new prices after we hit this new stretch goal, which I don’t expect to be to long from now. You (my international friends) have been such a great support that I really want to make it worth it for you.

So please be patient and after we hit 50k, I’ll announce the new international shipping and then all you need to do is manage your reward and lower your pledge amount to reflect the new shipping. If you are feeling generous and still want to pay for all the shipping then I would really appreciate it though. :)

So this brings us to…

New Stretch Goals!

Obviously the more money we raise the higher the print run will be on extras and this means that it starts to become affordable to print up extra things to include in your rewards! So here are a few fun little extras that I would love to send everyone if we hit these new goals.

$50k – Reduced International Shipping

$50k – Free reMIND bookmark (with $25 pledge or more)

$53k – Free Victuals postcard (with $25 pledge or more)

$56k – Free Lizard Man postcard (with $25 pledge or more)

$59k – Free Cyrene postcard (with $25 pledge or more)

$62k – Free Sonja postcard (with $25 pledge or more)

$70k – Top Secret Reward (or I haven’t figured it out yet)

New Original Art Rewards!

Now that all the fancy Collectors Box Sets are claimed, I decided to start offering some VERY unique rewards. Unique as in art right from the book. I have never been a big fan of selling my original artwork because I get so attached to what I’ve done, but after sifting through my piles, I don’t think there is any better time than right now to try to get rid of some original reMIND art.

It was hard but I divided up all the art into 4 stacks. 1) small art, 2) medium art, 3) full pages, 4) big spreads or hero shots.

For now I’m going to offer 1 – 3 as a pledge option. The thing to remember about my artwork is that it’s mostly all clean pencils on random sizes of paper. I draw some panels by them selves and every now and then I do a full spread on one sheet of paper but it’s rare. So don’t expect the standard comic size paper with everything blocked out perfectly. I have everything from small panels to super wide panels on single sheets of paper. Every piece will be mounted onto bristol board to improve durability and make it nicer to display or frame. Every piece is unique in size and shape and some might even have ink brush work in areas.

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On another note, I finally uploaded all the pinups from the reMIND Pinup contest this weekend. Please sift through them and give some nice comments to the authors if you like them. I’ll announce a voting system pretty soon so you can help me pick the winner! Thanks again to all the contributors who made this contest such a success.